Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
October 3, 1893 The first federal road agency in the United States -- and the original predecessor to today’s U.S. Department of Transportation -- came into existence when U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sterling J. Morton, under the Agricultural Appropriation Act that had been enacted earlier that year, formally established the Office of Road Inquiry (ORI). The... Continue Reading →
October 1, 1872 Henry Hooper Blood, who would earn widespread respect in the course of a high-profile career that included serving as chairman of the Utah State Road Commission – a predecessor of the present-day Utah Department of Transportation -- and president of the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO), was born in the... Continue Reading →
September 27, 1980 A dedication ceremony was held for a bridge in the city of Eugene in Oregon’s Lane County. Knickerbocker Bicycle Bridge, as it is popularly known, crosses the Willamette River. While originally built for use by the Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) for carrying a water main across the river, the bridge... Continue Reading →
September 26, 2011 In the regional county municipality of Arthabaska in Canada’s province of Quebec, the Joseph-Édouard-Perrault Bridge in the municipality of Warwick was reopened following extensive renovations. This wooden covered bridge crosses the Rivière des Pins (River of the Pines), which is a tributary of the Nicolet River. The Joseph-Édouard-Perrault Bridge was built in... Continue Reading →
September 25, 1938 The big sports event in Washington, D.C., on that Sunday was without question the President’s Cup Regatta. This multi-day series of waterborne competitions had been introduced in the nation’s capital a dozen years earlier, and the annual event quickly became renowned for the motorboats and hydroplanes participating in a variety of races... Continue Reading →
September 19, 2009 A state-of-the-art coastal mapping vessel built for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was launched into the East Pascagoula River at the shipyard of VT Halter Marine, Inc., in the vicinity of Moss Point, Mississippi. This vessel was formally commissioned as NOAAS Ferdinand R. Hassler (S 250) on June 8, 2012.... Continue Reading →
September 18, 1981 Transit entrepreneur Francis Brunner died in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 81. He had been one of the pioneers of sightseeing bus tours along Southern California’s coast -- through a segment of the Santa Monica Mountains region and near the shoreline of the Santa Monica Bay -- and was pivotal in... Continue Reading →
September 13, 2005 National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) began construction on USNS Alan Shepard (T-AKE-3), a U.S. Navy underway replenishment (UNREP) vessel. (This type of vessel is used to transport fuel, munitions, and various other supplies to ships out at sea.) The building of the Alan Shepard took place at NASSCO’s shipyard in San... Continue Reading →
September 12, 1911 More than three decades after achieving worldwide fame as a winner of the America’s Cup, the schooner-yacht Madeleine underwent her final journey when she was towed to the mouth of the Hillsborough River on Florida’s west-central coast to be dismantled and sunk there. During the previous year, the Madeleine had been used... Continue Reading →
September 11, 1935 Ground was broken on the first section of the Appalachian Scenic Highway, which is now known as the Blue Ridge Parkway. These initial building efforts took place along a 12.5-mile (20.1-kilometer) stretch near the western North Carolina-Virginia border, specifically in the vicinity of North Carolina’s Cumberland Knob mountain peak. The ultimate result of... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 